Smoke-Filled Lungs
by 2DaughtersOfAthena
Summary: Sirius is not best pleased with who his family is.


_Orion is the most prominent constellation in the sky – it is an intrinsic display of power, and it has certainly allowed my father to think that he was owed something because of it. He always liked to think that he could rule the house and my family, just as his namesake ruled the night. Orion Black liked to think that, because his name was written in the stars, it gave him the right to abuse any power bestowed upon him._

-0-

Darkness stretches out across the tiled kitchen floor, the singular, pale candle making my father's shadow so much broader and larger and all the more frightening. From the opening and closing of his spitting mouth, I know he is screaming at me, one fist raised, and the other pulling my hair to face him. My nose is bleeding, the pressure increasing, but I ignore it. I can't let him see that his fear-mongering advances are affecting me.

"You are as vile as they come, boy," he hisses, mouth quivering as spittle drops from his tongue. When I don't respond, he throws me from him, sliding into the far wall. I almost don't feel the crash, adrenaline forcing my continued numbness.

My father sinks onto his throne-like stool at the table, causing a harsh, scraping sound against the floor.

The pain is coming back immeasurably fast. I'm suddenly barely able to think past how much it all hurts and how many bruises I will have by tomorrow morning. That pricking, burning sensation behind my eyes is utterly ludicrous, and I'm trying desperately to push back the feeling. Already, the panic is there, constricting my lungs, forcing my thoughts, and churning my stomach. I can't let him see that weak part of myself. Not now, not ever.

Frustrated, hating him, hating myself, I stumble from the room. _Fuck him. Fuck them all._

I pass the sardonic, judging portraits of my family on my way to my bedroom, feet pounding hard and fast on the creaking stairs. Trying to put as much physical distance between me and the rest of the world as possible. Regulus hardly glances in my direction when we meet on the second landing. The perfect son. He fits in, destined to be better in the life designed for both of us. Destined to remain perfect throughout his entire sodding life.

Then there's me.

Same father. Same house. Same family. Except, I am the one with the shitty life.

I wipe the blood from my nose, practically kicking open my bedroom door and suddenly furious about absolutely everything. Why me? Why did i have to be born into this particular life - like some higher being is fucking laughing at me the whole fucking time? How is that fair? In this stupid family, never fitting in, and being punished for being different. My father is downstairs, relishing in his power, believing that if he continues to hurt me I will change and be the better son he obviously wants me to be. To him, there is nothing he can't get by bullying his way for it.

Fingers shaking, door closed, I reach for the top drawer of my bedside cabinet and the tiny, grey tin inside. Undetectable in between spare parchment scraps and chocolate frog cards collected over the years, it's hiding my stash of cigarettes. It opens easily from years of constant use. My trembling hands pull one from the metal and hold it to my lips. Zippo lighter ready, the butt burns and, after a few seconds, lights.

One long drag permits the tar and the nicotine to provide a different route for my thoughts. Together, they blur the words in my head for a second, then everything is much calmer. Air floods into the room from an open window, but the stench of the smoke still permeates into the ancient wallpaper. The green of it is a constant reminder that I'm _different_. Sirius Black, who doesn't belong in this family, and who isn't supposed to be in Gryffindor like his friends. The rest of the Blacks have all been Slytherins. Trust me to do something radical, to want friendship over ambition and material possessions. I'm not fuelled that way.

I don't want what every person in my family before me has wanted.

My father hates the smell of smoke. He doesn't approve of the yellowing fingernails and the greying of my teeth. Every time he tells me he doesn't like it, it only makes me want to smoke more, have more sex, stick more Muggle posters onto the walls, and run in whichever direction he is telling me not to go.

I want him to think that he has lost all ability to control me and shape me into whatever the fuck he wants. I want him to think that his words and his actions have absolutely no effect on me whatsoever. This makes him want to control me that much more, and I can go on hating him.

Each day of the following week drags slower than the one which precedes it, a monotonous loop I cannot seem to escape from. It's suffocating , stifling, and I'm drowning in the heat of the summer and its accompanying chilling loneliness. I spend hours, days, months, decades in my bedroom, it seems, staring at the dust and the smoke caught in the glowing sunlight . Time is filled with thinking - a third of it is about Hogwarts, half of it is on my escape, and all of it is involving Remus. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I wonder if he is thinking about me too. But even my most reliable fantasies about my wolfish friend cannot keep me company for long.

Instead of tricking myself that I'm not hungry, bored, alone, and chain smoking, I sleep.

There are no knocks on the door or calls for food, but I send a letter to James in the hope that he can help a brother out. Thankfully, he does. Unfortunately, the much-needed provisions arrive after three days of near-starvation. The only food in my room consists of stale sweets, a few half-eaten bowls of porridge, and whatever titbits are in my drawers.

Remus hasn't contacted me at all, and I know he must be busy with holiday homework and such. But it stings anyway. It makes me feel that little bit more alone, especially given that he's been more distant lately. I think he is growing less hopeful about our animagi transformation process every day. This will be the year, though, I'm confident.

Maybe he's still trying to protect us from the monster he thinks he is, and the monster we know he isn't He's convinced that he will never be in control of the wolf, and that it will always hold power over him.

Three weeks pass, the summer hot enough through my window to tan my pale skin. My mind manifests images of friends and Hogwarts, which satisfies for a while but only brings the quietness of my situation to a juddering reality. I can picture Remus perfectly, all polite, knowing smiles, freckles, and an amber kaleidoscope resting in his eyes. I can hear James' laugh as he tousles his hair and rolls up his shirt sleeves to be cool in the hot air. I can smell the odour of constant, sugary candy on Peter's skin, sticky fingers and hair bleached by the relentless sun.

But it's all in my head. My insane, lonely head, where I can leave the house freely and see my glorious friends, finally able to see my imaginings of the outside world come to life. Because this is the power my father has over me, pushing me to live this awful, lonely life, because he cannot accept that I am dissimilar from him.

 _Where the hell would I go if I didn't live here?_

I haven't expressed this thought aloud before, because it would get me nowhere. The fact is that I have to endure my time at Grimmauld Place, because there is nowhere else. But I just don't know how long I can continue this, year after year. An argument, a fight, a punishment, and the rest of the summer hiding away in furious, depressing solitary confinement.

The thought of doing that forever is unbearable.

He'll know that it bothers me, and that I hate it here more than can be imagined. Maybe he already does. Maybe it's why he does it.

I've never smoked so much and so frequently in my entire life, duplicating cigarettes daily. This last one is falling away into ember and ashes, so I retrieve another from the drawer, not quite ready to give up the choking warmth of it yet. All the time I am feeling off-balance, as though the world is spinning incomprehensibly fast, and I can't even figure out which leg to use to stand up on.

Throughout my life, things have been focused on power and variables. Our family status is something that is maintained and monitored, allowed to develop and not to diminish. There are variables that exist, however. One such variable is me. The Gryffindor. Lion amongst a cave of snakes, with no foreseeable way out. I couldn't control the Sorting Hat placing me in the "wrong" house, it's who I am. Perhaps the most infuriating thing of all: I cannot even control who I am, let alone allow my father to change me.

On the Thursday of my fourth week away from everyone, I wait for my family to migrate to the back of the house at midday. Then, quickly, silently, I crack open my window a little further and climb out. My limbs are weak and the cigarette hangs from my lips, but I'm out, and the air is so good. Crisp, salty, grainy.

I end up in the park somehow, five minutes from my house. The grass is dried-up, and the playground is abandoned by any children not wanting to risk burning in the heat of noon. Not caring about the sod and the soil and grass, I lay in the middle of the field. From here, the clouds are closer, the broad expanse of the sky completely mesmerising in my newfound and definitely short-term freedom. The cigarette burns on, smoke matching the pale clouds as it bursts from my lips.

Like eating or breathing, I don't remember starting to smoke. I don't remember where I picked it up from, or who around me has done it in my life to make me follow them. But I know why I continue to do it.

My father wants me to be like Regulus, the perfect son, so he tries to force me to be someone I am not - as much as I sometimes think that I would rather be green than red to just fit in. I'm trying to pay him back, make him believe that he has no power. And yet, this is untrue. This summer, and every summer, has been spent thinking over how I can be different, avoiding confrontation because of my inherent fear, and having slow, horrific panic attacks over extended periods of time.

To have some sort of constant is the most absolute form of control. As long as I smoke, I can have that. My hands can be busy; my brain can occupy itself there for a while, and one half of it doesn't have to wonder whether I will succumb to the power of my father, or whether I will grow further and further from my family, the house I grew up in, and the life I have lived.

I smoke for the control.

When I'm in the room or the house with him, it's like I am thrown back ten years into the past, and I can't see past that lonely, dark-haired boy, ostracised before he even knew what the word meant. I'm thrown back into my fear, and to my terror, and I worry that he will know of it.

Smoking means having some semblance of control, and therefore autonomy and power.

Something for my hands to do while I try to make my mind forget.


End file.
